Tag Archives: Spiritual

Do you know why sane and saintly advises to shun materialism have proved to be futile always? It is plain and simple – seed of materialism had been sown by mathematics and mathematics is integral part of our life and therefore, it can’t go away in practical life; in ideal life – possibly!

Money, modern gadgets, medicines, science and technology would have not existed without “mathematics” as well as “man’s urge to have more and better”, which is actually materialism!

Materialism and mathematics go hand-in-hand to bring progression as well as regression!

It all started with humble number – 0 or 1 and then 2,3,4….during initial stages of evolution of human race.It is the numbers that gave ability to man to count, crave for more or clamor for less!

Thereafter, came virtual numbers -1,-2,-3…. And then the stage was set for major revolution!

It gave birth to imagination, innovation and creation on one hand and lust for power and greed for controls on other hand.

Mathematics became the foundation stone for all branches of science and medicine. Einstein’s relativity theories and for that reason other theories – Newton’s Laws, Quantum Mechanics, Super Symmetry etc. could have not come to existence without mathematics.Every modern day progression has foot prints of math and material in it!

Solid progression has brought sharp regression!Conflicts and controversies, worries and wars, money and manipulation, cruelty and killings, rivalries and revolts came up as consequence of materialism! Why otherwise Jesus Christ would have been crucified or Mahatma Gandhi assassinated?It seems that nature demands progression and regression to go hand-in-hand!

Can we be spiritual without material?

Preachers, Gurus, First of all, let us deal with lot of misnomers around spiritualism or being spiritual.

Prima facie, very definition of being spiritual or spiritualism in holy books, philosophical essays, articles written by believers and preachers is vague and leave you confused. Some spiritual leaders have defined it as the way to connect to the higher being – God or divine powers to get bliss and peace during life and after death, get relieved of sufferings and physical pains of self, dear ones and some noble souls wishing that for all people on this planet. Many pursue spiritualism for progress in their profession or business, success in their pursuits, getting more money and means to live luxuriously. Some intelligentsia like to be spiritual for getting benefits from their good karmas but no bruises from bad karmas! Many follow it, especially in east, to get moksha i.e. getting rid of their physical being, not knowing what it exactly means!

It is not a question of being for or against spiritualism or materialism. Point to be driven home here is that while taking recourse to spiritualism, we are intimately entangled with material or physical objects.

Another great gaffe is – being spiritual has been linked to good thoughts only, forgetting that good would always go with bad, as much as progression goes with regression!

To put the fact simply – spirit essentially means thoughts!

Now, to get thoughts, you need not only mind but also matter – brain. It is hypothetical that spirit, in other words thoughts can exist without brain. Further, what spirit or thoughts are supposed to be about? Thoughts always and actually comprise of images and ideas about matter!

This proves that matter and spirit co-exist; these cannot exist without each other. Matter creates spirit but spirit (thought) controls matter!

Look at godmen, gurus or preachers, who talks or write about spiritualism. They need material to communicate – mike, mobile or other form of media, apart from an audience. They need means to commute; money and organization to promote their ideas or thoughts about faith. Is not it then hypocrisy to advocate shunning materialism?

Where does this lead us to?

Above analysis brings following facts on the surface:

Matter and spirit are as much interwoven as matter and mathematics are!

Matter is determinate and spirit is indeterminate.

It is proven beyond doubt that only good thoughts (spirit) can lead to progression in every sense and that is what we witness today – modern means and media; a lot more to come! Read the minds of those, who are engaged in advancing our civilization; they are full of only good thoughts – if they ever get bad ones, they falter and fail.But, bad thoughts certainly lead to regression. This is where same technology and advancements are misused to create chaos, fear, fundamentalism, terror etc.

It you want to make the most of matter and spirit, moderate or balance the use of the same.You would be the happiest and luckiest, if you use spiritualism and materialism just to the extent you need to achieve your goals; not more, nor less!

All of us dream of an ideal world! Can it ever become a reality? Or what we consider as ideal is only a dream, a piece of fiction or imagination? Is it that our definition of ideal world needs to undergo a change?

These are valid and natural questions, which do come in the minds of most people. These are prompted by the fact that quality of our life, in general, has been steadily degenerating; it is incrementally becoming complex by passage of every day.

Look at a single event of 9/11. It has created impact of such magnitude that one wonders whether that we would be ever safe like before. World has been drastically polarized by faiths and politics. Amazing technological advancements have empowered well and ill meaning people alike. Well-meaning people would always have automatic limits for what they do; but ill-meaning people would act with no limits!

Above are global issues. If you have your personal issues like a good career, high expenses compared to earnings, peace of mind or relationship, you would care the least about issues which you see as beyond you. But you have no clue, how those are impacting you silently. One fine morning, you would wake up to face those. May be by then it is too late. So, wishing any issue away is bound to make you worse off!

Many faiths or societies talk of golden era of the past. Even if that was not a myth but a reality, fact is we have steadily gone down from that era. So, something is definitely missing; otherwise why that era, if it was truly golden, should have not sustained?

So, are we at point of no return?

Contradictions seem to be normal way of life!

Look at the following how we live on throes of contradictions:

We strive hard to gain power. When we get it, it goes into our head and poison it, rather than entering into our heart and making us humble!

What we don’t have, we worry about and when we have a lot, then also we worry e.g. money, position or popularity. So, we hardly enjoy what we have!

When we have energy, we lack experience to reap the fruits; but when we have experience, we are low in energy to enjoy the ripe fruits.

We enamor those who can manipulate our emotions; but hardly show interest in ones who stimulate our imagination!

We advocate virtues; but, end up adoring or adopting vices!

What we dislike always dominates our mind; but what we like disappears fast.

What is tasty is seldom healthy and what is healthy is hardly tasty.

What we stress to remember, we surely tend to forget.

We find simple things are hard to do; but hard things easy to do.

When we should keep our head cool, we make it hot. Where we should exercise restraint, we end up reacting or rebelling!

There are innumerable other examples, all of which point to the plain fact that contradictions are normal part of our life.

Need to redefine what is Ideal!

Our life exists because of pluses and minuses. Every plus produces its mirror image – minus and vice versa. Therefore, contradictions that we face are very natural. More we accept this fact, more would we be able to understand and manage.

Contradictions always create physical, mental or spiritual conflicts. Mental conflict here means conflict of our thoughts. If we can minimize such conflicts, real life would improve. So, an ideal life is the one which embodies no or minimum physical and mental conflicts! It is not peace, prosperity or luxury, which makes an ideal life. Of course, love or happiness is the state, which represents no conflicts and therefore, we construe that as ideal! But in practical life, we cannot be all the time in state of love or happiness. What is very well feasible to do is to minimize conflicts.

You don’t need money, power or position to make your real life as ideal, if you show will to do 2 things:

Flow with nature and life!
Don’t resist, don’t react or don’t question; just flow along the currents of nature and life. Accept what it is! Embrace the realities you face!!

Don’t view 2 opposite aspects of any contradiction at the same time!Collision or conflict occurs when 2 opposite things fall together. When you look at each aspect separately by itself, you can understand it well and that would automatically stimulate your ideas and strength to deal with it.

These 2 are very powerful tools having deep meaning. These together work like auto-brake; if you understand and do right, it would automatically put brake on wrong or reckless doings including irrational innovations or advancements!

Moral sum is that if we can live with minimum conflicts, we would individually make our life ideal and together we will make it an ideal world!

Expression of ownership for what is held in hands; source: http://www.flickr.com/

Generally, your ownership is very different for what you hold in your hands compared to image of same very object in your mind – for example, a child in your hands (or on lap) as against her picture in your mind, mobile handset in your hands as opposed to TV or Desktop computer screen showing same contents or currency notes as opposed to credit card in your hands! I know of many persons, spending hours watching news channels with utmost attention on TV; yet next morning, they can’t do without holding a newspaper in hand and reading it!! Nothing is like possessing a book on subject of your choice, rather than reading it on-line.

Out of five traditional senses of human body, smell and taste play lesser role in creating your ownership (their bigger role is in creating likes or dislikes); but sight and hearing senses play a big role towards developing ownership. Nonetheless, your ownership becomes complete only if you are able to touch; in other words, you are able possess it. It is the ability to hold it physically, in which your touch sense gets activated; you feel the real or full ownership. That is how most human minds are conditioned!

Why a handheld mobile phone has become so indispensable gadget of your life? What do you think? After all, there was life before 1973, when 1st version of this handheld device was launched. The fact is that it is our ability to see, hear and possess anywhere anytime is what has made mobile handset unavoidable part of our life!

What is very important here is to understand crucial role of our ownership, feeling of possession or likes behind such evolution. Where all of our 5 senses get satisfied, we develop ownership like a duck getting into water! Ownership becomes less and less when we are not able to use all senses and hence sense of our satisfaction or belonging goes down and down!! Not that it is very desirable; but in reality, that is the state of most human minds.

Make only optimum use of your 5 traditional senses!

Ownership is one of the most important qualities, which you need for sure in professional as well as private life. It also sows seeds for other critical qualities like sincerity, focus, enthusiasm, diligence and attention to details. It would be very interesting to know that ownership is closely linked, as mentioned above, the way you use your 5 traditional senses – sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. Whereas overuse leads to obsession, under-use results in aversion! Right thing is to make only optimum use of your senses.

Take example of any activity at work place for which you develop a liking, say marketing; you would start making use of sight and hearing more. Instead, if it is software development, you would start focusing on senses like sight and touch more. Remember, your mind is always active and working in conjunction with respective senses. Now, those who become very passionate about marketing, they would start making very high use of their senses for sight and hearing.

So, excessive use of some or all 5 senses invariably makes a person narrow in his/her liking, flair or expertise! Sensory effects are far reaching, since mind stores the same in memory. Depending upon the flair, which you have developed, respective sensory feelings would keep popping up in your mind on simulated basis. That is what creates temptation in your mind to do same thing more and more, so that it results into more inputs to mind via those very senses of yours.

Higher the use of your 5 senses, higher is the material ownership and lower is mental or spiritual (it does not mean religious) ownership and vice versa!

Make maximum use of your 6th sense!

You must have heard about 6th sense. Various philosophies or faiths talk of 6th sense; but there is no clear definition.

6th sense is the sense of your mind, when it does not allow you to use any of 5 traditional senses!

It is a very powerful state of mind. Several terms have been given to such state, which confuses nearly all people. If you think that intuition, inner voice, instinct, inspiration or bliss is any different than this state of mind, it is now time to correct your perception. It is same as what you can call as your 6th sense! Everyone has it!!

Maximum use of 6th sense promotes very high degree of your ownership on your pure thoughts or ideas. Great innovators like Thomas Edison, Graham Bell or Benjamin Franklin, thinkers, scientists or thought leaders have used knowingly or unknowingly their 6th sense to the maximum and that is what had made them great! Most celebrated music composition from Beethoven came in when he was totally deaf!! It could have only come from his stronger 6th sense.

If you like to make your life awe inspiring, change your ownership by minimizing or optimizing use of 5 traditional senses and maximizing use of your 6th sense!

Look at western hemisphere of the globe; you would find that most of it is more developed, in terms of being modern and advanced, than eastern hemisphere (leave Japan and Australia out of the discussions for the time being). Go down to Continental level say Europe. Western European countries are more developed than East European countries. Now, move down to country levels. Take United States – western states like California, Washington etc. have been the first to bring scientific and technological advancements not only in USA; but also in the world. West of Russia is far more advanced than its eastern side. Western India is much more developed than its eastern counterpart.

Now, I want you to take you through amazing coincidence – western side of Mumbai Local railways had been strikingly richer, more advanced and developed than east side! It is only because of saturation and rising costs in western suburbs in Mumbai, that attention now is getting focused to develop east side.

A caution in this analysis – please do not split the hairs. Look at the overall scenario and trends at levels of masses and major areas, to understand the synthesis of this article. The notion of east relative to west just comes from the direction of rotation of earth and how “zero or starting time line (arbitrary) for a new calendar day was fixed somewhere on right side of New Zealand on 2-Nov-1868”. By that token, New Zealand (NZ) becomes the first eastern country; but if the same zero time line was to be fixed on left side of NZ, then NZ would have become last western country on earth! So, these notions of east and west are just human made; not absolute in any sense.

In short, every place, which we call as “eastern” could be west of “western” in one rotation of earth. So, please do not be surprised that at many places, east part is more developed than west!

Now, you would also notice a diagonally opposite feature of east. Eastern side is generally richer in culture, art, literature, traditions and spirituality. It beholds old values. On the other hand, west is more modern, materialistic, rationalist, propagator of new values, which may not have linkage to traditions, culture or spiritual values!

What is beneath such a great contrast between two hemispheres of globe to two opposite sides of a railway track – East & West? Is it a mere coincidence or a causal phenomenon?

It is not a coincidence!

Did you watch spectacular millennium celebrations in NZ and at Sydney Harbor in Australia at 12 midnight of 31-Dec-1999? They were among first to celebrate! Now, authorities or group of individuals watching these in San Francisco, USA could have improved upon and done even better, as they had nearly 24 hours in hands for their millennium night to come!

Moral of the story is West has got at least more than 52,000 opportunity days per person till date since year 1868, compared to East to improve upon ideas and develop more in relative terms. But, it is not that East was completely blind to what West was doing during that period. So, we can say West had better possibilities to develop on net-net basis.

What is the Secret?

Have weather, geography and natural resources i.e. natural factors in general helped West as opposed to East? It does not seem to be the case. Moreover, these would be frivolous, when we consider this phenomenon for the same city or state!

Evaluate the following:

Note – we are talking below of overall behavior of large section of population at a given place and not individuals yet!

Psychologically, when we start a new calendar day, we tend to focus fresh on new or older ideas/thoughts.

As the calendar day progresses, our focus shifts to things, issues or events, that have occurred in immediate past or just before.

Towards end of the calendar day, we usually get time to brood over things of previous day and prior time! But, by then most people run out of time or energy or both. Even if new information or events occur at that time, on an average, people tend to lie low, as the day is getting over.

What has been happening in East –

Behavior pattern in East has been predominantly centered on point 1 above, as it sees and is subject to calendar day first. It is like a fresh start with less recourse to prior info!

Above, over decades and centuries, has led to development of new and consolidation of old culture, art, traditions, spirituality etc.

Modernization and rationalization took a relative back seat, because of split focus on point 3 above. Point 2 has kept East engaged with current and on-going problems.

What has been going on with West –

West has a unique opportunity of knowing longer history of a calendar day during their part of the day! For example, USA is able to see and evaluate events of the whole day in East as well as witness their own on the same very date; Europe and U.K. do it partly.It is like a start with substantial prior info!

Therefore, actions of West shifts more to point 2 as compared to 1 and towards end of its day, West has the possibility of knowing new and early events in East for the next Calendar day!!

Above has enabled West to learn better lessons from what had happened in East, better prepared to make improvements, innovations and add new values. This also resulted in their shunning older order, seeking new and making them more rationalists.This is one single biggest factor for scientific and technological advancements coming from West!

Note – One could always counter argue against above by saying in East, one or several individuals can or actually do work very long and in night to beat the effect of a calendar day. But, we are talking of behavioral pattern and efforts of several million people over decades and centuries, which have impacted development of countries and regions!

What needs to be recognized is how an Arbitrary Line for start of a calendar day on right side of NZ and effect of day’s cycle on human psychology has made all the difference in different regions of our planet!!

Now, coming to why above secret has not applied to Japan and to some extent to Australia/NZ. Do not be surprised, if I say the Secret does apply to them also. Look at closely the behavior and work culture of Japanese people. They have been functioning as West side of West, even if it has meant to be one day’s cycle latter. They have stuck to it; working harder, longer and disciplined to reach 2nd top position, even after ruins of World War II. Australia and NZ have followed Japanese example; but only partly.

So, what is the Message?

Contrast between West and East clearly proves that if you can learn from the past in every day’s cycle and then, make efforts to improve and innovate, you would bring terrific technological and scientific advancements. If you like to look fresh at new or older ideas at the start of every day cycle, you may not discover new or get stuck with old ones.

And, this becomes a precursor to redoubtable and reassuring revelation of a new subject of the next post on CYI!